The PS1 Observatory on Haleakala, Maui just before sunrise. The new telescope is billed as the world's largest digital camera and is scanning the night sky for potentially dangerous asteroids.
A new telescope in Hawaii being billed as the world's largest digital camera has begun searching the sky for potentially killer asteroids that could endanger our planet Earth.
With a main mirror about 60 inches wide, the new telescope on Maui's Haleakala volcano peak is somewhat small when compared to the large 10-meter Keck telescopes atop the Hawaiian peak of Mauna Kea.
But the telescope's 1,400-megapixel camera is a digital giant, with 1.4 billion pixels spread across 40 centimeters to snap photos of the night sky automatically, night after night, to find potentially dangerous asteroids. A typical domestic digital camera may have 5 million pixels on a chip a few millimeters across, telescope officials said.
via Largest digital camera hunts killer asteroids - Space.com- msnbc.com.
The back up Blog of the real Xenophilius Lovegood, a slightly mad scientist.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Largest digital camera hunts killer asteroids
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